Sad Girls Club
by Moody Peach
Summary: Deep in the woods on a crisp Autumn night, two sad, angry women begin to heal. [Post-BD AU]


Disclaimer: I don't own _Twilight_.  
Note: Everything is the same except Emmett doesn't exist in this universe. The events of _Breaking Dawn_ and prior have unfolded the same, however.

* * *

 **SAD GIRLS CLUB**

* * *

The hairs on the back of my neck all rise and a slither of ice rushes down my spine.

Leech.

Bloodsucker.

"Who's there?"

My voice, ripe with rage, echoes through the trees.

From above I can hear soft laughter.

A hiss slips through my gritted teeth. "Blondie?" Through slitted eyes I stare into the tangled limb of wood and leaves above my head.

"Can't a girl relax in a tree after she's eaten her dinner?" Her voice, dripping with sarcasm, is honey-rich in its sugarcane sweetness. Peering closer I can see she's picking apathetically at her manicured, apple-red nails.

I can't help but scoff at the vision laid out before me.

"Do you normally venture through desolate forests in the nude?"

"I was just going for run," I retort.

Internally I'm screaming with girlish insecurities. I wrap my arms protectively around my own body and avert my gaze from the spellbinding ― _sick, freaky, undead Marilyn Monroe-looking vamp_ ―woman currently hovering in the air like an angel. Her silky mane spills down her back in loose waves; it looks like melted gold.

I'm suddenly _too_ tall, my legs long but lanky. My short, soot-black locks are too sharp and boyish, sticking out wildly from skull.

"I've been alive for more than a century," the blonde leech ― _Rosalie_ ― drawls, flicking her hand dismissively, "I don't care that you're naked."

Ah. She's mistaken my gesture as one of modesty.

I can't imagine how'd she react if she knew of my thinly-veiled anxiety; probably with a sneer and a conceited comment.

"Do you normally pig out on innocent animals alone?"

Rosalie, rolling her eyes, jumps gracefully from the branch she had been perched on. I take a careful step back, expecting a loud noise, but instead she lands noiselessly on a pile of leaves; I realize she's barefoot and, unsurprisingly, her toenails are perfectly clean and polished.

I suppress a gasp ― her quartz skin glows luminously in the moonlight.

"Why the hostility?" She quips an eyebrow and arranges her expression into one of boredom. "I thought we're all one big, happy family now."

"Nature is nature," I scoff, "and we're _natural_ enemies."

"Your alpha is also eternally bonded to my niece," she smoothly replies, although her voice is a bit caustic.

"Don't remind me."

Rosalie's lips curve into a smirk. "Jealous?"

"Imagine if you could hear every thought your brother _Eddie_ has about his dearest Mrs. Cullen," I challenge, "and then you'll know how I feel."

Her smile wavers and a look of unfiltered disgust passes across her face. "Point taken."

" _Exactly_."

"I sometimes have to get away from the Shakespearean love story that is Bella and Edward," she remarks flippantly. "Except if this was a Shakespearean play there'd be sacrifice and character development."

I'm uncertain about her haughty words, but I imagine most ― if not all ― of her barely-concealed anger has its roots in Bella's mere existence.

You and I both, Blondie.

"I don't get it."

"She's learned nothing," she sighs, pressing her palm against the trunk of a tree and leaning forward; the wood croaks as her fingers dig into the bark. Sap coats her hand but she doesn't flinch. "Charlie had a heart attack. Remember?"

I nod, recalling Seth's frantic thoughts and Jacob's sorrowful phone call. "He's fine, though…" Had something changed? Blood rushes to my cheeks. Jacob would be inconsolable if anything happened to Charlie Swan.

"Yes, but that minor brush with death disrupted Bella's syrupy-sweet vision of her vampire life. She realized she could lose him. So you know what she proposed?"

My eyes widen and my arms ― which had still been tightly wound around my body ― fall to my sides. " _No_."

"Yes."

An awkward silence passes between us. I try to steady my rapid heartbeat; I try to remember everything we have all nearly lost in our efforts to protect Bella Swan from the consequences of her own actions. In fact I have always tempered my worries with the knowledge that perhaps Bella's choice, as reckless and selfish as it had been, was one she would never regret. The unyielding adoration she drapes over her hybrid child every single moment brought comfort to me, even though I felt slightly disquieted about how Edward had shifted to the mere background in her picture-perfect narrative since becoming a vampire. He didn't seem to notice, so I suppose their relationship was healthy.

"Obviously it was the grief that was talking," Rosalie explains passively, "but it took every ounce of my sanity not to slap the ever living hell out of her."

"Who even cares."

"I care," she counters, sharpening her eyes at me. "I can't begin to imagine what happens when a woman who's never lost or sacrificed anything is given everything she's ever desired and then _more_. But now I'm seeing it. Bella has lived never seeing beyond her tunnel vision. Now that she's witnessed the dirt and grime and blood that eternal existence has to offer, she…"

I stare into the distance, letting her words seep in. "She's throwing a temper tantrum."

"I admired Bella." My eyes veer back to Rosalie and our red-hot gazes interlock. The tension in the atmosphere thickens like a deep fog. "We were similar in ways neither of us would ever care to admit. It's when I caught how she reacted every time she passed a mirror that I came to recognize these similarities. She would gawk at herself _every_ single time. She would even run her fingers through her hair like clockwork."

"Are you telling me that our very own Snow White is just as shallow as you are, Rosie?"

Rosalie arches an eyebrow at my surly statement. " _Rosie_?"

A blush creeps onto my cheeks and I offer a halfhearted shrug. "Poor attempt at sarcasm. Sorry. Continue."

"Bella's always been obsessed with beauty and youth. But more importantly I think she feared aging and dying above all else. I remember when I was human…"

I snort. "Were you the belle of the ball?"

"In so little words, yes… Yes, I was." A wistful expression plants itself onto her lovely face. "All I ever wanted was to be the most beautiful and talented woman that Rochester had to over, and then my children, too, would be the most gorgeous and enchanting babies to have ever graced the world. Being a vampire has given me… half of that. Bella never desired children, you see. And yet she was given eternal beauty and strength _and_ a child to a boot."

I become frighteningly aware that I'm nude once again, but in spite of what I imagine is an odd sight to behold for any passerby, I decide to press further. "You wanted kids?"

A small smile, devoid of sincerity, graces her lips. "Yes. More than anything."

An icy cold slithers through me. I chew on my lower lip, trying to repress the desperate words that I've been internally screaming for years.

If anybody were to hear them ― _truly_ hear them ― it would never be a vampire.

But dammit all, I'm naked in a forest and having a strangely intense conversation with a bloodsucker.

I suppose it's time to embrace the bizarre.

"I can't have children."

Rosalie arches an eyebrow. "Neither can I."

"And it's out of our hands."

"Fate is funny like that."

I frown at her. "You think becoming a vampire was fate? Was it your choice?"

Her eyes darken. Oh. I've struck a chord. "It certainly wasn't _my_ choice."

"Phasing wasn't mine either," I snap. "It was a natural response to the vampire infestation that has plagued Washington."

"It's your ridiculous male ancestors who you have to blame."

"Oh God, are you going to jabber about the 'patriarchy' or whatever?"

It's then that I realize that Rosalie's eyes are as black as coal. I take a tentative step backward and a natural instinct to defend myself bristles at the surface of my skin. Deep within my core I can feel the She Wolf ready to burst.

"I'm not angry," Rosalie says, seeming to read my body language. The notion makes me uncomfortable. "Well, I am, but… Isn't it terrible how our destinies have been crafted by meddling men?"

"I guess. I would give anything to eliminate whatever gene inside of me that causes me to shapeshift."

"And sometimes I want to to punch Carlisle in the face." She tilts her head and her onyx-black eyes shift back to their regular amber-gold color. "You're warm."

I recoil slightly, my mouth hanging open. "Um. Yeah. I am."

Her eyes are impossibly soft. "I can feel it all over me."

My entire body goes up in flames and my mind wanders to memories I've tried to bury: Sam's hands roaming the length of my legs; his lips peppering my neck. Unbridled hatred accompanies these sensations and as quickly as these memories have befallen me they scurry away just as fearfully.

"You're bitter and angry," she says, her voice cool. "Why?"

"I'm…" Okay. Why even deny it? "Well. I had to hear my ex-boyfriend's thoughts about much he loves to fuck and worship my ex-best friend for, like, ever."

"Imprinting. Hmm."

"We're supposed to embrace it as a blessing from our ancestors or something stupid like that," I say, shrugging my shoulders. "Personally I don't like the idea of having no free will. Plus Billy thinks a lot of imprinting has to do with reproduction. I'm _not_ an incubator."

"You should hold onto that anger," Rosalie suggests, her pink lips curling into a wide smile. "You look prettier."

I scrunch up my face. "Not everything is about looks."

"And yet where else would I be without them?" Her face becomes somber. She bears a striking similarity to a marble statue: A smooth, ivory surface, an angular nose, a cascade of curling hair. I'd argue she's Aphrodite reborn, but the scent of blood tints the air from her hunt, and suddenly all I can see is Artemis, prideful and statuesque and _wild_.

I bite down once again one my lower lip, a gesture Rosalie doesn't miss. Her face brightens again, and she gazes at me through heavily-lidded eyes ― they are as black as a panther now.

"I should… head out. Yeah."

"Hmm."

Neither of us have moved, however. I'm torn down the middle as a strangely powerful desire to transform and flee battles with a disgusting need to touch the vampire's skin; to feel the icy coldness and how deeply it contrasts with my own warm flesh. I remember how a newborn vampire's body cracked and crumbled like porcelain in my teeth as I barreled through the red-haired leech's army like a wrecking ball. Would Rosalie, however, be smooth in all the right ways? My whole core is aflame.

"Warm," Rosalie muses, her voice a soft caress.

"Do you wanna… touch me…?" I grapple with the weight of what I'm suggesting, but I feel as though I'm somebody unrecognizable. Hopefully she is as a curious of me as I am of her.

She steps forward. "Do you want me to?"

I match her movement, my body relaxing the closer I get. "Yes."

Tentatively she extends her hand, her palm facing me and her fingers slightly parted. She eases her hand down and traces her long, nimble fingers down my arm; electricity shoots through my veins and a pleasurable, heated sensation smoothers me. I can hear my heartbeat drumming in my ears. She's as cold as ice, and yet I can feel myself simmering.

Hell, I half expect to _steam_.

Mirroring her curious actions, I run my fingers through her blonde tresses. The sheer concentration on her face falters and I can practically read eyes as if they were my own.

 _Kiss me_.

A part of me hesitates ― any stolen intimacy between us will be collected by the mental link I share with my pack.

However, considering Jacob's pathetic devotion to Bella as well as her bizarre daughter, I feel myself abandon these doubts.

He has no place to judge anybody.

Throwing caution to the wind, I eagerly cup Rosalie's face in my hands. She drops her own hand, stunned, and gazes at me with wide, solemn eyes.

"The last time somebody touched me like this," she whispers, her normally hard and reserved disposition fragmenting, "he left my heart bruised and black with hate."

"I'll erase _all_ of him from you," I vow, realizing that the undead woman before me has been hurting for God knows how long ― trapped with her demons and her trauma in a ageless body.

She's been confined to a prison of agony for far too long, and I intend to rectify all of the wrongs of her past.

I ignore the wetness that creeps into the corner of my eyes.

I even dismiss the strange manner in which the earth begins to shift underneath me ― as if the planet has spun off its axis. An imaginary ribbon ties itself to to the image of Rosalie ― laughing and smiling ― that has now buried itself in my heart.

Pretending to not know what's happening, I leap into the unknown and eagerly press my lips to Rosalie's.

She matches my hunger with her own.

Deep in the woods on a crisp Autumn night, two sad, angry women begin to heal.


End file.
